For the Showtime series Ray Donovan, actor and Brockton native Pooch Hall took a trip back to Boston (accents, at least), playing Daryll Donovan, Mickey Donovan’s bi-racial illegitimate son, and Ray Donovan’s half brother. To play the role of a professional boxer, Hall leaned on his boxing skills circa Brockton High School, where he won the Southern New England Golden Gloves for boxing.

More recently, Hall’s boxing skills took him into the world of film, playing Muhammed Ali in the biographical sports drama The Bleeder, set to come out later this year. Hall caught up with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio on Tuesday. Highlights below.

Margery: Ray Donovan is a great show. So many people are so in love with this. I love to see John Voight dancing around— he’s not a bad dancer for an old white guy, isn’t he?

Hall: He’s a great dancer, and he’s an even greater person, he’s my father away from my father, and I’ve learned so much from him. One thing I can honestly say about him playing Mickey Donovan is that he did his research, I think he spent some time here in Boston just to kind of really get that feeling, what it would be to be one of Whitey Bulger’s ex-lieutenants, or Whitey Bulger himself, or just the Southie neighborhood.

Jim: Did you see Midnight Cowboy before you met John Voight?

Hall: No, I saw it after, and I did my whole John-Voight-binge-watch, but I recently had seen him in Enemy of the State, and I was like ‘that guy is a really bad dude!’ and he’s the sweetest most kindest humblest man ever.

Jim: You’ve got Liev Schreiber, who is as hot as anybody in America, you’ve got John Voight, who I would argue is one of the greatest actors of the last 50 years, is that not intimidating?

Hall: Being a native of Brockton and sports being a huge backdrop for us —and a fighter, and being from New England… we’re just blue-collar, tough, we’re not intimidated by anyone. We’ll get the job done, like Coach Belichick says, do you job. And that’s exactly what I did, and I looked at it as him making us better, them making us better as actors.

Jim: You’re here trying to play this New England card, throwing in quotes from Bill Belichick… I’m watching a video of you from a couple of weeks ago, some interview, and you know what you’re wearing in that particular interview? A New York Yankees baseball cap. How does that fit into the Brockton-New England schtick here?

Hall: It fits in because, you know, I spent some time in New York, and living in LA, the Yankee hat isn’t even like, a Yankee hat. It’s a fashion thing. We just wear it with our clothes… plus Jay Z is my favorite rapper.

Jim: I knew that was going to come up.

Hall: But I have a Pawtucket Red Sox hat and a Boston Red Sox in my arsenal, so we’re good.

Jim: Fair enough.

Margery: Tell us about one of your other big exciting projects, you’re playing Muhammed Ali in a biopic, tell us about that.

Hall: First of all, rest in peace to one of the greatest athletes and humans that ever blessed this planet. I’m playing Muhammed Ali in the film The Bleeder, opposite Liev Schreiber, where he plays Chuck Wepner. The Chuck Wepner story is that he is the original Rocky Balboa, and so Apollo Creed in the Rocky movie was based off of Muhammed Ali. I got to learn so much more about Ali than him saying ‘I’m a bad man!’— he is so incredible, soft-spoken, and just a class-act. And there’s so much history there, to where filling those white boots and those white trunks with the black stripe was a dream come true for me, because as a fighter from Brockton, Muhammed Ali and Roy Jones were my inspirations. Acting opposite Liev Schreiber, who is just a phenom as far as an actor… it was an amazing experience for me.

Jim: When is this going to be out? It’s been at several film festivals?

Hall: It just got accepted to the Toronto and Venice film festivals, which is huge for us. It stars Naomi Watts, Michael Rappaport, Jim Gaffigan, Ron Perlman…

Jim: Do you imitate him, or do you play him?

Hall: I had to embody him. That’s the thing with Muhammed Ali— a lot of people impersonate him, but when you’re doing a film like this, you have to become him, and it’s not just getting the voice down, it’s his mannerisms. Boxing was a huge thing in his life and his world, to where I felt like… Will Smith, when he played Ali, if he knew how to box for real, it would have really pushed it over the edge. With me being a fighter, and I’m a southpaw.

You can see actor Pooch Hall in season four of Showtime’s critically acclaimed series Ray Donovan. He also just wrapped up production, playing Muhammed Ali in the  biographical sports drama The Bleeder. To hear his full interview with BPR, click on the audio link above.